System and method for controlling animation by tagging objects within a game environment

ABSTRACT

A game developer can “tag” an item in the game environment. When an animated character walks near the “tagged” item, the animation engine can cause the character&#39;s head to turn toward the item, and mathematically computes what needs to be done in order to make the action look real and normal. The tag can also be modified to elicit an emotional response from the character. For example, a tagged enemy can cause fear, while a tagged inanimate object may cause only indifference or indifferent interest.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 13/657,290filed Oct. 22, 2012, now allowed, which is a continuation of applicationSer. No. 13/064,531 filed Mar. 30, 2011, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,319,779,which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 12/654,844 filed Jan. 6,2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,928,986, which is a continuation ofapplication Ser. No. 10/078,526 filed Feb. 21, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No.7,667,705, which claims the benefit of Provisional Application No.60/290,688 filed May 15, 2001 and Provisional Application No. 60/314,289filed Aug. 24, 2001, the entire contents of each of which are herebyincorporated by reference in this application.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to computer graphics and more particularlyto the use of computers to generate animated displays. Still moreparticularly, the invention relates to techniques for automaticallycontrolling animation within a video game or other graphicalpresentation. In particular, the invention provides a reactive animationsystem that enables game characters or other graphical characters toappear much more realistic as they interact with a virtual world inwhich they are displayed. The reactive animation system enables, forexample, the creation virtual worlds where the character(s) therein willdo things, such as have a facial, body or other type of physical oremotional reactions, in response to the character coming withinproximity of a “tagged” element (such as a point of interest in a 3Dworld). The invention enables characters to appear much more realisticby giving the character a personality and appearing to bring thecharacter to life in its virtual environment without having to script oranimate each scene in advance.

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Many of us have seen films containing remarkably realistic dinosaurs,aliens, animated toys and other fanciful creatures. Such animations aremade possible by computer graphics. Using such techniques, a computergraphics artist can specify how each object should look and how itshould change in appearance over time, and a computer then models theobjects and displays them on a display such as your television or acomputer screen. The computer takes care of performing the many tasksrequired to make sure that each part of the displayed image is coloredand shaped just right based on the position and orientation of eachobject in a scene, the direction in which light seems to strike eachobject, the surface texture of each object, and other factors.

Because computer graphics generation is complex, computer-generatedthree-dimensional graphics just a few years ago were mostly limited toexpensive specialized flight simulators, high-end graphics workstationsand supercomputers. The public saw some of the images generated by thesecomputer systems in movies and expensive television advertisements, butmost of us couldn't actually interact with the computers doing thegraphics generation. All this has changed with the availability ofrelatively inexpensive 3D graphics platforms such as, for example, theNINTENDO 64®, the NINTENDO GAMECUBE® and various 3D graphics cards nowavailable for personal computers. It is now possible to interact withexciting 3D animations and simulations on relatively inexpensivecomputer graphics systems in your home or office.

A problem graphics system designers have confronted is how toefficiently model and render realistic looking animations in real timeor close to real time. To achieve more interesting dynamic animation, anumber of video and computer games have used various animationtechniques such as key frame transformations, inverse kinematics and thelike to model and animate people, animals and other objects. See forexample O'Rourke, Principles of Three-Dimensional Computer Animation (W.W. Norton 1998) at chapters 3 and 4 especially. While such techniqueshave been highly successful, animators have searched for ways to makeanimations more realistic without the need to control or map out eachand every movement of an animated character beforehand.

One approach that has appeal is to make the animation engine responsiblefor animated characters increasingly more intelligent. For example, itis possible to define an “intelligent” animated character within athree-dimensional environment and allow the character to react to theenvironment based on its programmed qualities. If the character issufficiently intelligent, rather complex reactions can be dynamicallycreated “on the fly” by the real time animation engine—saving the gamedeveloper the massive amount of time and effort that might otherwise berequired to script out the animation sequence. See, for example, U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/382,819 of Comair et al filed 25 Aug.1999 entitled “Object Modeling For Computer Simulation And Animation”incorporated by reference herein.

While such approaches have been successful, further improvements arepossible. In particular, we have developed a new, efficient techniquefor causing an animated character to pay attention to an object within avirtual world by tagging the object. When the animated character movesinto proximity with an object (e.g., in response to user control), thesystem checks whether the object is tagged. If the object is tagged, theanimation engine animates the character to pay attention to the taggedobject (e.g., by animating the character to look or stare at the taggedobject so long as the character remains close to the tagged object). Thetag-based animation engine can, for example, animate the character toturn toward or face the tagged object in the process of paying attentionto it—creating a very realistic visual effect without the typicalprogramming overhead normally required to specify which direction theanimated character should face and when. In other words, in accordancewith the invention, the tags can be defined by designers at any locationin the virtual world and given certain characteristics that are designedto cause a character that comes into a defined proximity of the tag tohave some sort of reaction to the tag. By defining several tags in ascene, such as, for example, in a virtual hallway through which acharacter is walking, the animation engine makes the character much morerealistic and to appear as if the character is coming to life throughits reactions to the tags. The tags are preferably associated withvirtual objects of the type that would typically cause a human to have areaction in the real world. The tags are preferably defined to cause thesame type of reaction in the character's animation, as a typical humanwould have in the same circumstance in the real world. In this way, thecharacter has much more human-like reactions to its environment whilemoving through the virtual world, and the character can be made toappear as if it has “come to life.”

In accordance with the invention, the tagging system of the animationengine is preferably priority based. In other words, each tag isassigned a priority value that is used by the animation engine tocontrol which tag will be used when more than one tag is active. Byprioritizing the tags in the environment, the animation engine as ableto display the character as paying attention to or reacting to thetagged object that is of highest interest to the character, based on thecharacter's current environment and/or state, from among several tagsthat may be in proximity to the character at any one time. This tagprioritization feature further helps to make the character appear morerealistic by enabling the character to prioritize its reactions in thesame or similar way to that of a human. For example, in the real world,humans typically are confronted with numerous objects (e.g., interestingpainting, view, other object etc.) or events (loud noise, flashinglight, movement, etc.) that may cause a reaction at any one time.However, humans, by their nature, typically react to the one thing thatseems to be the most important at each instant in time. For instance, ahuman would typically stop looking at a piece of art when a loud noisecomes from another object, and then quickly turn in the direction of theloud noise. Upon determining that the noise is not a problem, a humanwould then typically resume looking at the piece of art. These samehuman-like movements and reactions can be generated by the reactiveanimation system of the invention, by giving the object that makes thenoise a higher priority tag while active as compared to the tagassociated with the piece of art. In this way, all of the tagged objectsin the environment can have relative priorities assigned thereto basedon, for example, the nature of the object.

In one particular embodiment, the object can be tagged with a tag thatinspires an emotion in the character while paying attention to thetagged object. The emotion can, for example, be fear, happiness, or anyother discernible emotion. If an object is tagged to inspire fear, thecharacter can be animated to turn toward the object and react with alook of horror. If an object is tagged to inspire happiness, thecharacter can be animated to turn toward the object and react with a bigsmile. Other emotions and reactions are possible. In fact, the tag canbe defined to cause any type of response that corresponds to anyvariable or role-playing element that the character may have, as well asto cause emotional and/or physical reactions. For example, the tag couldmodify the animation of the character so that the character appearsinjured, sick or insane while under the influence of an active tag.

In accordance with the invention, the character's animation is adaptedto the tag when the tag is activated. Activation of the tag can occurwhen the user gets within a selected distance from the tag and/or basedon some other defined event. The adaptation of the animation ispreferably done by defining key frames for use in creating a dynamicanimation sequence using the information provided by the tag. Thedynamic animation sequence is preferably generated using the techniquesknown in the art as “Inbetweening” and “Inverse Kinematics.”Inbetweening enables the frames between the key frames to be generatedfor the dynamic animation, and inverse kinematics is used to assure thatthe character's movements are natural during the animation. Once a tagis activated, the animation of the character is adapted from its genericor canned-animation to a dynamic animation based on the type of tag thathas been encountered. Thus, the tag triggers a dynamic modification ofthe character's animation for the period of time it takes for the tag tobecome inactive, such as by the character moving out of range of thetag.

The dynamic animation provided by the reactive animation engine of theinstant invention provides a character (or other object) with realisticreactions as the character moves through the virtual environment,without having to handcraft the animation for every possible scene inadvance. Thus, the invention enables animation to be generatedon-the-fly and in an unpredictable and realistic manner. As a result,the character's animation can constantly change in a variety of ways anddepending on many possible variables. This makes the character'sanimation unpredictable and greatly enhances the visual effect of thedisplay. A significant advantage of the instant invention is that thecharacter can be displayed with a myriad of animations without having toscript, hand-craft or store each of the animations in advance. Instead,the reactive animations are dynamically generated on-the-fly and in realtime based on the tag.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features and advantages of the present invention may bebetter and more completely understood by referring to the followingdetailed description of presently preferred example embodiments inconjunction with the drawings, of which:

FIGS. 1-5 show example screen effects for a first exemplary animationsequence provided by a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 5A shows an example conceptual display illustrating the location ofa tag and a vector from the character's eyes to the tag;

FIGS. 6, 7A, 7B, 8 and 9 show example screen effects for a secondexemplary animation sequence by a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 10A-10B illustrate an example system that may be used to createthe displays of FIGS. 1-9;

FIG. 11 is an example flowchart of steps performed by a tag-basedanimation engine of the instant invention;

FIG. 12 illustrates an example tag data structure for tags used inaccordance with the instant invention;

FIG. 13 is a more detailed example flow chart of steps performed by thetag-based animation engine of the instant invention;

FIG. 14 is an exemplary flow chart of the steps performed by thetag-based animation engine of the instant invention in order to generatea dynamic animation sequence; and

FIG. 15 is an exemplary flow chart of the steps performed by thetag-based animation engine for tag priority management.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIGS. 1-5 show example screen effects provided by a preferred exemplaryembodiment of this invention. These Figures show an animated character10 moving through an illustrative video game environment such as acorridor of a large house or castle. Hanging on the wall 11 of thecorridor is a 3D object 12 representing a painting. This object 12 is“tagged” electronically to indicate that character 10 should payattention to it when the character is within a certain range of thepainting. As the character 10 moves down the corridor (e.g., in responseto user manipulation of a joystick or other interactive input device)(see FIG. 1) and into proximity to tagged object 12, the character'sanimation is dynamically adapted so that the character appears to bepaying attention to the tagged object by, for example, facing the taggedobject 12 (see FIG. 2). In the example embodiment, the character 10continues to face and pay attention to the tagged object 10 while itremains in proximity to the tagged object (see FIG. 3). As the charactermoves out of proximity to the tagged object 12 (see FIG. 4), it ceasespaying attention to the tagged object by ceasing to turn towards it.Once the animated character 10 is more than a predetermined virtualdistance away from the tagged object 12, the character no longer paysattention to the object and the object no longer influences thecharacter.

When the character first enters the corridor, as shown in FIG. 1, thecharacter is animated using an existing or generic animation that simplyshows the character walking. However, when the tag becomes active, i.e.,the character approaches the painting 12, the reactive animation engineof the instant invention adapts or modifies the animation so that thecharacter pays attention to the painting in a natural manner. Theanimation is preferably adapted from the existing animation by definingkey frames and using the tag information (including the location andtype of tag). More particularly, inbetweening and inverse kinematics areused to generate (i.e., calculate) a dynamic animation sequence for thecharacter using the key frames and based on the tag. The dynamicanimation sequence (rather than the existing or generic animation) isthen displayed while the character is within proximity to the tag.However, when the tag is no longer active, the character's animationreturns to the stored or canned animation (e.g., a scripted and storedanimation that simply shows the character walking down the hallway andlooking straight ahead).

In the screen effects shown in FIGS. 1-5, the object 12 is tagged with acommand for character 10 to pay attention to the object but with noadditional command eliciting emotion. Thus, FIGS. 1-5 show the character10 paying attention to the tagged object 12 without any change ofemotion. However, in accordance with the invention, it is also possibleto tag object 12 with additional data or command(s) that cause character10 to do something in addition to (or instead of) paying attention tothe tagged object. In one illustrative example, the tagged object 12elicits an emotion or other reaction (e.g., fear, happiness,belligerence, submission, etc.) In other illustrative examples, thetagged object can repel rather than attract character 10—causing thecharacter to flee, for example. Any physical, emotional or combinedreaction can be defined by the tag, such as facial expressions orposture change, as well as changes in any body part of the character(e.g., position of head, shoulders, feet, arms etc.).

FIG. 5A is an example conceptual drawing showing the theory of operationof the preferred embodiment. Referring to FIG. 6, the “tag” T associatedwith an item in the 3D world is specified based on its coordinates in 3Dspace. Thus, to tag a particular object 12, one specifies the locationof a “tag point” or “tag surface” in 3D space to coincide with theposition of a desired object in 3D space. FIG. 5A shows a “tag” T(having a visible line from the character to the tag for illustrationpurposes) defined on the painting in the 3D virtual world. In accordancewith the invention, the animated character 10 automatically responds byturning its head toward the “tag”, thereby appearing to pay attention tothe tagged object. The dotted line in FIG. 5A illustrates a vector fromthe center of the character 10 to the tag T. The animation engine cancalculate this vector based on the relative positions of character 10and tag T in 3D space and use the vector in connection with dynamicallyanimating the character.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, one canplace any number of tags T at any number of locations within the 3Dspace. Any number of animated characters 10 (or any subsets of suchcharacters, with different characters potentially being sensitive todifferent tags T) can react to the tags as they travel through the 3Dworld.

FIGS. 6-9 illustrate another embodiment of the invention, wherein twotags are defined in the corridor through which the character is walking.A first tag T1 is provided on the painting as described above inconnection with the display sequence of FIGS. 1-5. However, in thisembodiment, a second tag T2 is provided on the wall mounted candle. Thissecond tag is different from the first tag in that it is defined to onlycause a reaction from by the character when the candle is animated toflare up like a powerful torch (see FIG. 7A). The second tag T2 is givena higher priority than the first tag T1. The reactive animation engineis programmed to only allow the player to react to one tag at a time,that one tag being the tag that has the highest priority of any activetags. As a result, when the character 10 is walking down the corridorand gets within proximity of the two tags, the second tag is not yetactive due to the fact that the candle is not flaring up. Thus, thecharacter turns to the look at the only active tag T1 (i.e., thepainting) (see FIG. 6). However, when the candle flares-up, the secondtag T2, which has a higher priority than T1, also becomes active,thereby causing the character to stop looking at the painting and turnits attention to the flaring torch (i.e., the active tag with thehighest priority) (see FIG. 7A). Once the torch stops flaring andreturns to a normal candle, the second tag T2 is no longer active andthe reactive animation engine then causes the character to again turnits attention to the painting (i.e. the only active tag)(see FIG. 7B).Once the character begins to move past the painting, the character'shead then begins to turn naturally back (see FIG. 8) to the forward oruninterested position corresponding to the stored animation (see FIG.9). Thus, in accordance with the invention, the character responds toactive tags based their assigned priority. In this way, the character ismade to look very realistic and appears as if it has come to life withinits environment. As explained above, the reactive animation engine Edynamically generates the character's animation to make the characterreact in a priority-based manner to the various tags that are defined inthe environment.

Example Illustrative Implementation

FIG. 10A shows an example interactive 3D computer graphics system 50.System 50 can be used to play interactive 3D video games withinteresting animation provided by a preferred embodiment of thisinvention. System 50 can also be used for a variety of otherapplications.

In this example, system 50 is capable of processing, interactively inreal time, a digital representation or model of a three-dimensionalworld. System 50 can display some or the entire world from any arbitraryviewpoint. For example, system 50 can interactively change the viewpointin response to real time inputs from handheld controllers 52 a, 52 b orother input devices. This allows the game player to see the worldthrough the eyes of someone within or outside of the world. System 50can be used for applications that do not require real time 3Dinteractive display (e.g., 2D display generation and/or non-interactivedisplay), but the capability of displaying quality 3D images veryquickly can be used to create very realistic and exciting game play orother graphical interactions.

To play a video game or other application using system 50, the userfirst connects a main unit 54 to his or her color television set 56 orother display device by connecting a cable 58 between the two. Main unit54 produces both video signals and audio signals for controlling colortelevision set 56. The video signals are what controls the imagesdisplayed on the television screen 59, and the audio signals are playedback as sound through television stereo loudspeakers 61L, 61R.

The user also needs to connect main unit 54 to a power source. Thispower source may be a conventional AC adapter (not shown) that plugsinto a standard home electrical wall socket and converts the housecurrent into a lower DC voltage signal suitable for powering the mainunit 54. Batteries could be used in other implementations.

The user may use hand controllers 52 a, 52 b to control main unit 54.Controls 60 can be used, for example, to specify the direction (up ordown, left or right, closer or further away) that a character displayedon television 56 should move within a 3D world. Controls 60 also provideinput for other applications (e.g., menu selection, pointer/cursorcontrol, etc.). Controllers 52 can take a variety of forms. In thisexample, controllers 52 shown each include controls 60 such asjoysticks, push buttons and/or directional switches. Controllers 52 maybe connected to main unit 54 by cables or wirelessly via electromagnetic(e.g., radio or infrared) waves.

To play an application such as a game, the user selects an appropriatestorage medium 62 storing the video game or other application he or shewants to play, and inserts that storage medium into a slot 64 in mainunit 54. Storage medium 62 may, for example, be a specially encodedand/or encrypted optical and/or magnetic disk. The user may operate apower switch 66 to turn on main unit 54 and cause the main unit to beginrunning the video game or other application based on the software storedin the storage medium 62. The user may operate controllers 52 to provideinputs to main unit 54. For example, operating a control 60 may causethe game or other application to start. Moving other controls 60 cancause animated characters to move in different directions or change theuser's point of view in a 3D world. Depending upon the particularsoftware stored within the storage medium 62, the various controls 60 onthe controller 52 can perform different functions at different times.

As also shown in FIG. 10A, mass storage device 62 stores, among otherthings, a tag-based animation engine E used to animate characters basedon tags stored in the character's video game environment. The details ofpreferred embodiment tag-based animation engine E will be describedshortly. Such tag-based animation engine E in the preferred embodimentmakes use of various components of system 50 shown in FIG. 10Bincluding:

-   -   a main processor (CPU) 110,    -   a main memory 112, and    -   a graphics and audio processor 114.

In this example, main processor 110 (e.g., an enhanced IBM Power PC 750)receives inputs from handheld controllers 52 (and/or other inputdevices) via graphics and audio processor 114. Main processor 110interactively responds to user inputs, and executes a video game orother program supplied, for example, by external storage media 62 via amass storage access device 106 such as an optical disk drive. As oneexample, in the context of video game play, main processor 110 canperform collision detection and animation processing in addition to avariety of interactive and control functions.

In this example, main processor 110 generates 3D graphics and audiocommands and sends them to graphics and audio processor 114. Thegraphics and audio processor 114 processes these commands to generateinteresting visual images on display 59 and interesting stereo sound onstereo loudspeakers 61R, 61L or other suitable sound-generating devices.Main processor 110 and graphics and audio processor 114 also performfunctions to support and implement the preferred embodiment tag-basedanimation engine E based on instructions and data E′ relating to theengine that is stored in DRAM main memory 112 and mass storage device62.

As further shown in FIG. 10B, example system 50 includes a video encoder120 that receives image signals from graphics and audio processor 114and converts the image signals into analog and/or digital video signalssuitable for display on a standard display device such as a computermonitor or home color television set 56. System 50 also includes anaudio codec (compressor/decompressor) 122 that compresses anddecompresses digitized audio signals and may also convert betweendigital and analog audio signaling formats as needed. Audio codec 122can receive audio inputs via a buffer 124 and provide them to graphicsand audio processor 114 for processing (e.g., mixing with other audiosignals the processor generates and/or receives via a streaming audiooutput of mass storage access device 106). Graphics and audio processor114 in this example can store audio related information in an audiomemory 126 that is available for audio tasks. Graphics and audioprocessor 114 provides the resulting audio output signals to audio codec122 for decompression and conversion to analog signals (e.g., via bufferamplifiers 128L, 128R) so they can be reproduced by loudspeakers 61L,61R.

Graphics and audio processor 114 has the ability to communicate withvarious additional devices that may be present within system 50. Forexample, a parallel digital bus 130 may be used to communicate with massstorage access device 106 and/or other components. A serial peripheralbus 132 may communicate with a variety of peripheral or other devicesincluding, for example:

-   -   a programmable read-only memory and/or real time clock 134,    -   a modem 136 or other networking interface (which may in turn        connect system 50 to a telecommunications network 138 such as        the Internet or other digital network from/to which program        instructions and/or data can be downloaded or uploaded), and    -   flash memory 140.

A further external serial bus 142 may be used to communicate withadditional expansion memory 144 (e.g., a memory card) or other devices.Connectors may be used to connect various devices to busses 130, 132,142. For further details relating to system 50, see for example U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/723,335 filed Nov. 28, 2000 entitled“EXTERNAL INTERFACES FOR A 3D GRAPHICS SYSTEM” incorporated by referenceherein.

FIG. 11 shows an example simplified illustration of a flowchart of thetag-based animation engine E of the instant invention. Animation engineE may be implemented for example by software executing on main processor110. Tag-based animation engine E may first initialize a 3D world andanimation game play (block 1002), and may then accept user inputssupplied for example via handheld controller(s) 52 (block 1004). Inresponse to such user inputs, engine E may animate one or more animatedcharacters 10 in a conventional fashion to cause such characters to movethrough the 3D world based on the accepted user inputs (block 1006).Tag-based animation engine E also detects whether any moving characteris in proximity to a tag T defined within the 3D world (decision block1008). If a character 10 is in proximity to a tag T, the animationengine E reads the tag and computes (e.g., through mathematicalcomputation and associated modeling, such as by using inbetweening andinverse kinematics) a dynamic animation sequence for the character 10 tomake the character realistically turn toward or otherwise react to thetag (block 1010). Processing continues (blocks 1004-1010) until the gameis stopped or some other event causes an interruption.

FIG. 12 shows an illustrative exemplary data structure 1100 for a tag T.In the example shown, data structure 1100 includes a tag ID field 1102that identifies the tag; three-dimensional (i.e., X, Y, Z) positionalcoordinate fields 1104, 1106, 1108 (plus further optional additionalinformation if necessary) specifying the position of the tag in the 3Dworld; a proximity field 1110 (if desired) specifying how closecharacter 10 must be to the tag in order to react to the tag; a type oftag or reaction code 1112 specifying the type of reaction to be elicited(e.g., pay attention to the tag, flee from the tag, react with aparticular emotion, etc.); and a priority field 114 that defined apriority for the tag relative to other tags that may be activated at thesame time as the tag.

FIG. 13 shows a more detailed exemplary flow chart of the stepsperformed by the reactive animation engine E of the instant invention.Once the 3D world and game play are initialized (step 1302), the systemaccepts user inputs to control the character within the environment in aconventional manner (step 1304). The system initially uses scripted orcanned animation that is provided with the game for the character (step1306). The animation engine checks the characters position relative tothe tags that have been defined in the 3D world by the designers of thegame (step 1308). If the character is not within proximity to tag thenthe standard animation continues for the character (step 1310). However,when a tag is detected (step 1308), the tag is read to determine thetype of reaction that the tag is supposed to elicit from the characterand the exact location of the tag in the 3D world (step 1312). Theanimation engine E then uses key frames (some or all of which may comefrom the scripted animation) and the tag information to dynamicallyadapt or alter the animation of the character to the particular tagencountered (step 1314). The dynamic animation is preferably generatedusing a combination of inbetweening and inverse kinematics to provide asmooth and realistic animation showing a reaction to the tag. Particularfacial animations may also be used to give the character facial emotionsor reactions to the tag. These facial animations can be selected from adefined pool of facial animations, and inbetweening or other suitableanimation techniques can be used to further modify or dynamically changethe facial expressions of the character in response to the tag. Thedynamic animation then continues until the tag is no longer active (step1316), as a result of, for example, the character moving out of range ofthe tag. Once the dynamic animation is completed, the standard orscripted animation is then used for the character until another tag isactivated (step 1318).

FIG. 14 shows a simplified flow chart of the steps performed by thereactive animation engine E of the instant invention in order togenerate the dynamic animation sequence in response to an activated tag.As seen in FIG. 14, once a tag is activated (step 1402), the animationengine reads the tag to determine the type of tag, its exact locationand any other information that is associated with the tag (step 1404).The engine then defines key frames for use in generating the dynamicanimation (step 1406). The key frames and tag information are then used,together with inbetweening and inverse kinematics, to create ananimation sequence for the character on-the-fly (step 1408). Preferably,the dynamic animation sequence is adapted from the standard animation,so that only part of the animation needs to be modified, therebyreducing the overall work that must be done to provide the dynamicanimation. In other words, the dynamic animation is preferably generatedas an adaptation or alteration of the stored or standard animation. Thedynamic animation then continues until the tag is no longer active (step1410), at which time the characters animation returns to the standardanimation.

FIG. 15 shows an exemplary flow chart of the priority-based taggingfeature of the instant invention. This feature enables several or manytags to be activated simultaneously while still having the characterreact in a realistic and in a priority based manner. As seen in FIG. 15,when a tag is activated, the animation engine determines the priority ofthe tag (step 1502), as well as doing the other things described above.The animation engine then determines if any other tags are currentlyactive (step 1506). If no other tags are active, the animation enginedynamically adapts or alters the animation, in the manner describedabove, to correspond to the active tag (step 1508). If, on the otherhand, one or more other tags are currently active, the reactiveanimation engine determines the priority of each of the other activetags (step 1510) to determine if the current tag has a higher priorityrelative to each of the other currently active tags (step 1512). If thecurrent tag does have the highest priority, then the animation enginedynamically generates the character's animation based on the current tag(step 1514). If, on the other hand, another active tag has a higherpriority than the currently active tag, then the animation engine Eadapts the animation in accordance with the other tag having the highestpriority (step 1516). When the other tag having a higher priority is nolonger active, but the original tag (i.e., from step 1502) is stillactive, then the animation engine dynamically generates the character'sanimation based on the original tag as soon as the higher priority taghas become inactive. In this way, the character's attention can besmoothly and realistically changed from one tagged object to anothertagged object, as well as from no tagged object to a tagged object.FIGS. 6-9 illustrate an exemplary priority-based display sequence asjust described.

As can be seen from the description above, the instant reactiveanimation engine E of the instant invention can be used in a variety ofvideo games and/or other graphical applications to improve realism andgame play. The invention enables a character to appear as if it has“come to life” in the game environment. The instant invention isparticularly advantageous when incorporated into role playing gameswherein a character interacts with a 3D world and encounters a varietyof objects and/or other characters that can have certain effects on acharacter. The animation engine of the instant invention can also beimplemented such that the same tag has a different effect on thecharacter depending on the state of a variable of the character at thetime the tagged object is encountered. One such variable could be the“sanity” level of the player in a sanity-based game, such as describedin U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/184,656 filed Feb. 24, 2000and entitled “Sanity System for Video Game”, the disclosure of which isincorporated by reference herein. In other words, a tag may be definedsuch that it does not cause much of a reaction from the character whenthe character has a high sanity level. On the other hand, the same tagmay cause a drastic reaction from the character (such as eye's bulging)when the character is going insane, i.e., when having a low sanitylevel. Any other variable or role playing element, such as health orstrength, could also be used to control the type of reaction that aparticular tag has on the particular character at any given time duringthe game. Other characters, such as monsters, can also be tagged andwith prioritized tags as described above in order to cause the characterto react to other characters as well as other objects. Tags can also bedefined such that factors other than proximity (such as timing, as inthe candle/torch example above) can be used alone or in addition toproximity to cause activation of the tag.

While the invention has been described in connection with what ispresently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment,it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to thedisclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, is intended to cover variousmodifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit andscope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. An electronic image processing system fordisplaying a virtual environment, comprising: processing resourcesincluding at least one processor; and wherein the processing resourcescooperate to at least: process manipulations of a user-controlledobject, provide a display of the virtual environment using a displaydevice, detect when a user-controlled object comes into proximity to atagged object, the tagged object having tag information associatedtherewith, and update the display of the virtual environment bymodifying the display of at least one object, other than arepresentation of the user-controlled object, in the virtualenvironment, based on instructions retrieved from the tag information,when it is detected that the user-controlled object comes into proximityto the tagged object.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the taggedobject is not a user- or computer-controlled player character.
 3. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the at least one object whose display ismodified when it is detected that the user-controlled object comes intoproximity to the tagged object is a representation of the tagged objectin the virtual environment.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein the taggedobject is not a user- or computer-controlled player character.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the processing resources further cooperate toat least detect when the user-controlled object is no longer withinproximity to the tagged object and, upon such detection, trigger areaction for at least the user-controlled object based on instructionsretrieved from the tag information.
 6. The system of claim 1, whereinthe processing resources further cooperate to at least provide areaction for the user-controlled object based on instructions retrievedfrom the tag information when it is detected that the user-controlledobject comes into proximity to the tagged object.
 7. The system of claim6, wherein the processing resources further cooperate to at least detectwhen the user-controlled object is no longer within the predeterminedproximity to the tagged object and, upon such detection, triggerdifferent reactions for both the user-controlled object and therepresentation of the tagged object based on instructions retrieved fromthe tag information.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the processingresources further cooperate to at least generate an animation thatcorresponds to a human-like reaction in the user-controlled object whenproximity to the tagged object is detected, based on instructionsretrieved from the tag information.
 9. The system of claim 1, whereinthe processing resources further cooperate to at least alter thesurrounding virtual environment when proximity to the tagged object isdetected.
 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the electronic imageprocessing system is a game system.
 11. An electronic image processingsystem for displaying a virtual environment, comprising: processingresources including at least one processor; and wherein the processingresources cooperate to at least: cause a display device to display thevirtual environment, detect when a user-controlled object comes intoproximity to a plurality of different tagged objects, each said taggedobject having respective tag information associated therewith, andupdate, as it is detected that the user-controlled object comes intoproximity to the tagged objects, the display of the virtual environmentby modifying the display of at least one object, other than arepresentation of the user-controlled object, in the virtualenvironment, based on instructions retrieved from the tag informationassociated with the tagged objects with which the user-controlled objectcomes into proximity.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the taginformation associated with each said tagged object further includes apriority indication so that priority indications for different taggedobjects are comparable to one another by the processing resources. 13.The system of claim 12, wherein updates to the display of the virtualenvironment are selectively processed in accordance with any retrievedpriority indications.
 14. The system of claim 11, wherein at least someof the tagged objects are not user- or computer-controlled playercharacters.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one objectwhose display is modified when it is detected that the user-controlledobject comes into proximity to one of the tagged objects is arepresentation in the virtual environment of that tagged object.
 16. Thesystem of claim 15, wherein at least some of the tagged objects are notuser- or computer-controlled player characters.
 17. The system of claim11, wherein the processing resources further cooperate to at leastprovide a reaction for the user-controlled object based on instructionsretrieved from the tag information when it is detected that theuser-controlled object comes into proximity to the tagged objects.
 18. Amethod for animating objects in a virtual world to be displayed on adisplay of a system, the system having processing resources including atleast one processor, the method comprising: displaying, on the displayof the system, the virtual world; detecting when a user-controlledobject associated with the virtual world comes within proximity todifferent tagged objects, the tagged objects having tag informationrespectively associated therewith, the tag information designatingreactions for the user-controlled object and reactions forrepresentations of the tagged object when the user-controlled objectcomes into proximity to the tagged objects; and causing, in connectionwith the processing resources, the reactions for the user-controlledobject and for the representations of the tagged object associated withthe tagged objects when the user-controlled object comes into proximityto the tagged objects, based on at least on the tag informationassociated with the object(s) with which the user-controlled objectcomes into proximity.
 19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:animating the virtual world in accordance with a first script whenproximity to the tagged objects is detected; and animating thethree-dimensional world in accordance with a second script whenproximity to the tagged objects is not detected, the first and secondscripts being different from one another.
 20. The method of claim 18,wherein the at least some of the tagged objects are not user- orcomputer-controlled player characters.